Video: Pure X - "Surface"

Austin trio Pure X’s recently released record is called Pleasure, so the heavy, slow sensuality of songs like their latest offering “Surface” shouldn’t surprise you. What should get under your skin, however, is how grim they are.

“Surface” has a bassline that seems isolated from a song by Interpol or Deerhunter, ponderous and wandering, keeping its toe-tapping heartbeat even as atmospheric, distorted guitar and tender, incomprehensible falsetto vocals courtesy frontman Nate Grace threaten to bury it away. It’s a sexy song, for sure, but all the distant-sounding reverb haze lends it a distinct air of stunning, unnerving Gothic creepiness.

“Surface” comes with a video too – its costume-party-gone-wrong theme kind of adds to the disconcerting, disorienting vibe of the music.